


The swamp

by Ischa



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage), M/M, Orphans, Rape/Non-con References, Self-Harm, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:11:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce starts training John, secretly, as his successor. Then he fucks off and leaves John alone to deal with the void and everything else and that is what this story is about. </p><p> <i>“You,” he turned around furious like he wasn't in a long time, “Abandoned me!” </i><br/><i>“John-”</i><br/><i>“No, you taught me all these things. Like to break every single bone in someone's body, throwing sharp objects with precision, how to get out of cuffs in under three seconds. And you left me with all these skills and my rage with nowhere to go. I wasn't even sixteen back then!” He said. “And now you're here and complaining that I am killing people? That I use a gun?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The swamp

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in a fit of insomnia last night and my lovely and awesome partner in crime Icalynn took the time to look it over so you wouldn't have to deal with my horrible spelling and grammar.  
> She also wrote the kinky sex, I always let fade to black.../o\  
> Vaguely inspired by this prompt: http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/3076.html?thread=2717444#t2717444

**~One~**

_“The whole point of this night is for you to fight me,” he said and John was seething. He had been caught unguarded because he fucking trusted this man. He should have known better. There was no one he could trust. It was stupid to let his guard down._

_“No,” he said and just sat down on the cold ground. He would not play by this man's rules. He wouldn't play by any fucking rules anymore. John was done with this shit._

_“Robin,” there was something tender in the man's voice. John knew this man, he knew who this man was, what this man was, even if the man didn't know that John had figured it out. He wondered what the head of the orphanage thought they were doing on these little weekend-trips. Something pretty fucking sinister, for sure. Not that John cared.  
He was trained; he was learning how to take care of himself. How to break every single bone in a human being's body. It wasn't something a fifteen year old boy should know, maybe, but in a city like Gotham, well. Better to have this skill than lacking it. _

_“No, I am done with this. Take them off,” John said. He didn't get up, or wriggled in the handcuffs._

_“No, if you don't want to fight me, fine,” he said. “But you'll have to find a way to get out of them yourself.” And then he just left John there. In the cold, damp darkness._

~+~  
John could break out of the cuffs in under three seconds using a paper-clip, which he always carried around these days. You never knew when you’d need it.  
All the training when he was a kid served him well. He aced all his exams and didn't even show a fraction of his skills.

John knew he was way too good to be just a cop, but it would be okay for now. And he did have big plans. With all he knew and could do, what he was able of doing, he would be commissioner one day. There had been a time where he thought he would be jumping from rooftops and hunt scum in the underbelly of the city by now, but those times were over.  
John hated to think about those months in the cave. Those months with Wayne. Those months with Batman.  
Who fucked off and left John alone to deal with...all that he learned, all that he had become, and all that he didn't know how to- No. He wasn't going to think about this shit anymore.

“So, wanna go out for a drink?” Ross asked.

It had been a hell of a shift. Again. The City might have cleaned up on the outside, but people were still petty assholes and John hated to deal with domestic disputes. He didn't show it, but he had the feeling Ross knew anyway.

“Yeah,” John said. He needed a drink badly after a day like this. Or two.

~+~  
When John got drunk, he usually hooked up with someone. When he was out with Ross he’d hit on the bartender or a waitress and more often than not, he got lucky. Ross would shake his head and leave the bar. Leave John to his hook-up.  
When John went out drinking alone, when all the things in his head became too much to hold them in and he needed an outlet, he drove to the seedier parts of town and found a mean looking guy, who thought John would bend over for him.  
John made it a point to show them just how not in charge they were on those nights.

~+~  
John knew he was a messed up fucker, but he also knew he learned from the best, even if the education hadn't been completed.

“When will you stop hooking up with slutty, gorgeous bartenders and find a nice girl, Blake?” Ross asked.

John shrugged. He didn't think a nice girl would be able to deal with him being him. “I'm too young to marry.”

“No one is talking about marriage, just something steady. I mean...all the hot slutty bartenders and waitresses are fun for sure, but don't you think you’re missing something?”

John knew he was missing something. He also knew that he wouldn't get it. It was out of his reach. It was locked up behind ancient brick and imported wood.  
“I like it that way. No strings attached. Free as a bird and all that,” John grinned.

Ross shook his head, but grinned right back.  
John liked Ross, he was a good guy and he didn't push, even if he probably knew more about John than he let on.

~+~  
When Ross was with him, he tried to hold back.

But when he was alone and running, his heart pumping, his head clear, he didn't care so much for holding up a front. He would jump from rooftops to land smoothly two stories down and just keep running. Adrenalin in his veins and all the possibilities just out of reach. That old anger fuelling the new.  
He would grab a piece of garbage and throw it, making his subject stumble and fall.  
His aim was very precise. Nine times out of ten he could hit his mark head-on.  
And when Ross would round the corner from the other side, John would drag their subject up to his feet.

“Maybe I should start teaching kids basketball too,” Ross would say. “It sure seems to help keep one in shape.”

John would grin at him and hand the subject to Ross, because he couldn't trust himself not to beat the shit out of scum that beat the shit out of his wife or kids.  
“I got him, you deal with him and the paperwork?” John would ask and Ross would nod long-suffering.

~+~  
There was something dark inside John. He wondered sometimes if Wayne had seen it too. If that was why Wayne picked him and then just left again? If it was even too dark for Batman?  
John had believed in Wayne. He had believed in Batman.  
But he had been a fucking kid back then. Easily impressed.  
He wasn't easily impressed anymore.  
It took way more than a few fancy moves and a deep voice to make John shiver with anticipation – and other feelings John didn't think about anymore. Didn't know if he was even able to feel anymore. When Batman left, when Batman left _him_ , something broke inside John and got swallowed. And now it's sitting there and rotting.

~+~  
 _John had been sure, maybe he had hoped, that Batman would come back after a few hours, but he didn't. John was left in the damp, cold, darkness and he had been left there handcuffed with his hands behind his back._  
 _He hated feeling trapped, hated to feel helpless, useless. He was close to panicking. He wanted to scream, but bit his lip instead and waited a few more hours and as it finally sunk in that Batman would not come back, not too soon at least, he got up and looked around the cave. There was nothing. Nothing, not even a paper-clip and the only way, maybe the fastest way, to get out of these cuffs was by breaking a finger. John wasn't ready to face that kind of pain. But he knew that it was only Friday and that no one would miss him until Monday morning. And three days here, without food, water, and a bed, wasn't something he looked forward to.  
He took a deep breath and broke his own bones. He listened to it in total silence while he did it. But he could not keep the scream in once it had been done. The pain of his body was less severe than the one in his heart. He slid the metal over his hand and breathed carefully. He could feel tears running down his cheeks and then he got up. He stood tall in the middle of the room and screamed. And screamed and screamed until Wayne came back down what felt like hours later. _

_The light blinded him, he shielded his eyes with his broken hand as Wayne approached and then as he could feel Wayne's warmth – his own body felt so fucking cold – close by he looked Wayne in the face. “Are you proud?” he asked. His voice was shot to hell._

_“Jesus...” Wayne said, reaching out and John flinched back, sidestepped him and left the basement, or cave or whatever. Marching up the stairs, not looking back._

 

**~Two~**

_He didn't lie to the other kids at the orphanage about what happened to his hand. He broke it. And that was the truth. He just didn't tell how. And the authorities didn't ask. No one even so much as glanced at the marks around his wrists. It made John want to punch someone, to destroy things. It made him realise how corrupt, how rotten this city really was. He had had a taste when his dad was murdered. No one was ever on trial for that, and maybe that had been one of the reasons why John jumped into this whole being Batman one day thing. Now it was maybe more about revenge than justice. Some people, John realised, didn't deserve justice. Some people deserved to know how it felt to have every single bone broken in their bodies. And John would see to that. Would see that they experience that pain. One day._  
 _The car didn't come for John the next week and the one after that, so John got on the bus and walked the rest of the way. He had been pretending for Wayne's sake before, but he didn't think Wayne deserved that courtesy anymore._  
 _He knocked on the front door and waited._

_“Yes?” the butler said. He looked puzzled like he had never seen John before and he probably hadn't. The driver who picked him up was someone else. John could tell by the figure._

_“I'm here to see-” he stopped and cocked his head, “Bruce Wayne.”_

_“I'm sorry but Master Bruce isn't home right now and-”_

_“I can wait,” John cut in and then because manners were good for something, “Please?”_

_The butler's features softened. “Come on in. I will call Master Bruce. Who may I announce?”_

_“Robin Blake,” John said, he didn't like that name, it reminded him of better times, when he was still his mother's little bird, when things were good, but it was his name. The one Wayne would know._

_“I'm Alfred,” the butler said and John shook his hand before he followed Alfred to the kitchen where Alfred left him with a hot chocolate and a sandwich._

~+~  
John was a smart guy, he could put one and one together and he had been trying to put the night Batman disappeared together for years now. He had a lot of it figured out already, but parts were still missing.  
He knew that something happened to make Batman hide in the mansion and that no amount of banging on the door helped this time. He had been abandon.  
John got worse as he realised that. (He got into a lot of fights. Just to feel something else than anger, pain worked just fine and the thrill of winning, of flesh giving under his knuckles).  
It sure hadn't been the first time an adult let John down. Hell after his dad fucked up so badly and got himself killed, John had sworn to himself he wouldn't trust anyone anymore. That he would take care of himself. And then Wayne came, and with him, Batman and all the endless possibilities to escape this life. To be someone else, to be something more. And it all got crushed, because Wayne was only human. Batman was only human, and a selfish bastard on top of that.  
John really should have known better.  
Still, there had to be something more than just the death of Dent. Why? That was the question, why the hell did he take the fall? What made him give up?  
It made John crazy not knowing.  
Maybe that had been one of the reasons why he joined the Gotham police. It gave him access to files, and more importantly access to Gordon who had been there from the start. Who had been there that night.

~+~  
John had thought of becoming a vigilante himself when he got out of the orphanage. Gotham had needed someone to clean the streets, but then there was the whole Dent Act. The City started to clean up, the public suddenly hated Batman and John could barely afford to pay his rent.  
And in his darker hours, he just knew he didn't owe this city anything at all. If anything this city owed him. Big time.  
So John did the only thing he could. He joined the force.

~+~  
“Can you image being a cop before the Dent Act?” Ross asked. He was on his second cigarette and first cup of coffee. John couldn't help but notice. John noticed things, he was born that way and his skills had been honed in those ten months at the manor.

“Before Batman you mean?” John said. He kept his voice neutral, but Ross looked at him anyway.

“You like that guy, didn't you?”

“He did what needed to be done, Ross,” John answered shrugging. He lit his own smoke and took a deep drag.

“He endangered citizens,” Ross said.

“As I see it, they did it to themselves by looking the other way when kids where abused, women rapped, men shot in the middle of the day. Not coming forward to make statements.”

“People were afraid, Blake,” Ross said.

“Fear is a prison we built for ourselves. And these people didn't only build it, they hid behind its solid walls too.”

“You don't have a high opinion of Gotham's citizens, do you?”

John gave him a look, took another deep drag from his smoke. “You know what happened to my dad.”

Ross nodded. “Yeah.”

“I saw the whole thing. I could describe them. I could describe every single one of the people who saw it happen too. They didn't take my word for it, said I was emotionally compromised. They didn't take me seriously, because I was a kid or because they were paid off. They were never caught.” And I can still see their faces, John thought.

“That was before the City cleaned up its act, before the Dent Act,” Ross said gently.

“Before Batman made them face themselves,” John replied hard.

“A vigilante is not the answer.”

“It was. Did the trick, didn’t it?” John smiled. He took a last drag of his cigarette and flipped it on the pavement.

“No littering, kid,” Ross said.

John grinned.

~+~  
Part of John just couldn't help himself. Part of him still wanted to believe in Batman. There was no denying it that Batman at least made Gotham, the people who lived there, realise that something needed to be done.  
Made them face the darkness every time they saw him.  
John didn't need Batman to face the darkness. John just needed a mirror.

~+~  
 _John could hear the door and then arguing in the hallway before Wayne stepped into the kitchen. His eyes fell to John's hand. The finger was of course still broken and the skin around it was purple and blue. It looked ugly, but it would heal._

_“What are you doing here?” Wayne asked._

_John looked at Alfred and thought about keeping his mouth shut. It was obvious Alfred had no fucking idea what had been going on the last five months._

_“I missed you,” he said and liked his lips. Alfred made a noise and Bruce looked away from John's face to look at his butler._

_“Come with me,” he said to John and to Alfred, “That will be all.”_

_Alfred looked like he wanted to argue with him, but didn't. He smiled at John and John smiled back._  
 _He stood up and followed Wayne into his office where he sat down.  
“How long did you know?” _

_“A while,” John answered, looking around the room. He took in the books, the furniture, and the picture of a pretty woman. Hot jealousy spiking as he kept his face calm. “You didn't send for me. Were you waiting until I healed?” He put his hands on the desk. It was a provocation._

_Wayne didn't look away. “No. I didn't think you would-”_

_“You thought wrong,” John cut in. “I'm still in.” He still was, he just wouldn't be playing by Wayne's rules anymore._

_“I hurt you,” Wayne said._

_“I hurt myself,” John answered and was very aware of the truth. He hurt himself, he let himself be hurt by believing in Wayne, by believing in Batman, but he wouldn't make that mistake again._

_“I didn't think you would break your own thumb to get out of the cuffs,” Wayne said._

_“You didn't leave a key, or a paper-clip,” John said calmly. “I searched the whole basement.”_

_“I wanted to teach you a lesson-”_

_“You did. I don't think it was that one, but you did,” John cut in again. He didn't want to talk about this anymore. He was here so Batman would train him again._

_“I would have come for you.”_

_John stood up and put both hands on the desk (he knew that the desk would star in his masturbation fantasies soon), leaned forward so they were nearly breathing each other’s air. “If this proved anything then, it’s that I don't need to be rescued or cuddled. I can take whatever you want to dish out.” He leaned away and looked at Wayne hard. “So?”_

_Wayne nodded._

 

**~Three~**

_Somehow, somewhere in the weeks following the handcuff incident the fear and anger John had felt that time made room for a whole other emotion: lust._  
 _John would lie in bed and replay that day in the basement. Hearing Wayne's voice telling him that that night would be all about fighting him and he would start to imagine different outcomes. Imagining that he somehow got to the key, somehow was able to get the handcuffs off and surprise Wayne, handcuffing him instead and he would stand over Wayne and look and maybe gloat a bit in the privacy of his head. And then he would kiss Wayne, slow and sensual. Testing the waters._  
 _Sometimes he would kiss Wayne hard, making him surrender. Taking off his clothes, ripping off his clothes, to get to skin. He would slide his hands down Wayne's torso, feeling every scar and every bruise, learning planes and curves and hidden spots of pleasure and pain (because he wouldn't be able to help himself and the human body is a fragile thing if you know where to apply pressure)._

_He would grab Wayne's dick, teasing, and making Wayne moan – maybe even John's name.  
Sometimes he dreamed that he couldn't get out of the cuffs and Wayne came for him, saw him there and kissed him anyway. Took him on the cold basement floor. These dreams were way more terrifying for some reasons. _

~+~  
John's second not-girlfriend, a girl he used to hook up with on a more or less regular basis was an art-student. And she had been the one who introduced John to the fine art of Shibari. Sumi hadn't been much into the sexual part of it. She found it aesthetic, the way flesh set rope apart, the way rope curled and left pattern that could be traced later on skin. The way it could make a body hover, and suspend the moment.  
John had been fascinated by the knots for reasons he didn't care to explore further.

“Maybe it has to do with how knots tie things together,” Sumi had said one day as John was playing around with the rope and watching her work on a project. He liked to spend time with her even when they weren't having wild crazy sex. “Maybe you like the security of it.”

“Maybe,” John had said laughing and left her alone to work.

He looked it up then. Looked at pictures of bound women and men and felt something inside him respond. Maybe Sumi was right, maybe he wanted someone tied to him, wanted something that was more than two bodies intertwined. Wanted to tie himself to something divine – or unholy. Maybe, John mused, maybe for him it was the same thing.

~+~  
“Do you think about tying someone up or being tied up?” Sumi asked. It was over breakfast and John took another sip of coffee so he had a few more seconds to think what the hell he wanted to answer her.  
I don't think about it at all? It would be a big fucking lie, because he looked it up, was thinking about it, was watching her work with her models. Making photos. Standing silently on the side lines of her projects.

“Tying someone,” he settled on because it felt like a safe answer. It was true too. To a point. He would never be able to trust someone enough to let them tie him down with pretty knots and let him hanging, balancing on the edge.

“You like to be in control,” she said.

“You knew that already,” John answered taking another sip of coffee.

She nodded. “Well, yes. All the pinning down and manhandling gave you away.”

He looked at her. He always thought she was fine with that. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.”

She shrugged. “I get off on my partner getting off on me, so...yeah.”

“I see, it's a viscous circle,” John joked.

She slapped his arm lightly. He just about grabbed her arm, but that would be creepy and he tried to train himself not to use his reflexes when he wasn't on the job. “Do you want to?”

“What?” John asked.

“Tie me down?”

He looked at her. She was small and fragile looking. Soft and thin. He shook his head. “No, I don't.” He didn't get off on it. He had looked at these pictures of bound women and he hadn't felt aroused at all. It wasn't about sex for John. Not about getting all kinky with a hot girl. Maybe if it wasn't a girl, he thought.

“Okay. But you still want to watch me, yes?”

“Does me watching turn you on?” John asked, because it only just occurred to him.

“Yeah, it does. I love how you get all focused on something.”

He shook his head. People. All of them; snowflakes.

~+~  
Even the pictures of men weren't that arousing, but when he thought about it being Wayne back in the basement, that somehow did it for John.  
So he let her show him how to use the rope for art and then for pressure points like a massage.

“At the beginning it used to be a form of imprisonment. You learned to make someone immobile but not to make them suffer,” she said. “And of course because there is beauty to be found in everything it had to look pretty too,” she smiled at John handing him a piece of rope. It felt soft between his fingers.

“Not to make the prisoner suffer, hmm? Only in Japan,” John said and she laughed. “Okay, let's do this.”

“Not on a person. You have a long way to go, young grasshopper,” Sumi said. John didn't mind. He didn't want to mess someone up or cause mental or bodily harm to a person just because he didn't know what he was doing or how to set a knot against a pressure point just right. To stimulate not to harm.  
Working with the rope was like meditation.

“You learn fast,” Sumi said.

John shrugged. He heard that before. “Soon I can use it in my day to day life,” he joked.

“Soon you won't need me anymore,” she answered. And that was true too. They hadn't fucked since she started teaching him the fine art of Shibari.

“And I'll move on to new adventures as will you,” John said.

She nodded.

~+~  
 _John mastered to get out of the cuffs just a few weeks later. He kept a paper-clip on him at all times since the first incident, and Wayne never patted him down._

_“I'm impressed,” Wayne said._

_“I do learn things here,” John answered shrugging, dangling the handcuffs from his fingers. He couldn't look at Wayne's face, because the cool metal reminded him of his dreams and his fantasies and all the things he shouldn't be thinking about when he was training to be a vigilante like Batman._

_He couldn't help but wonder if Batman had any lusty feelings, ever. Wayne sure as hell had. He was seen with pretty girls on his arm nearly every weekend. John wasn't jealous of them, but he couldn't be sure that if he ever found evidence of Wayne getting it on with a guy, he would feel the same way. Portably not._

_“Seems so,” Wayne answered._

_“So, what's next? Some rope-play?” John asked grinning._

_Wayne threw a water bottle at him. “That is an advanced class. Throwing stars.”  
John nodded. He would never admit it, but he really liked the throwing stars. _

 

**~Four~**

_Wayne was careful not to leave bruises, but when things got out of hand anyway he tried to leave them where no one would see. He never fucked up John's face. Not that John thought anyone at the orphanage would even care. Boys would always be boys after all._

_“What happened to you?” Wayne asked and he looked a bit shocked. As far as John could tell. Wayne had a pretty good poker-face._

_“I met someone who was bigger and meaner than me,” John answered shrugging, because in a nutshell that was what had happened._

_“You can take down a guy my size and maybe two or three about your size,” Wayne said looking him up and down. John knew that, but only guys who didn't have Wayne's training. Still._

_John knew how he looked. Bruised and messed up. And he hurt. He shrugged again like it wasn't a big deal. “Well, see, there were more than three, and I wasn't fast enough.”_

_“We need to work on that then,” Wayne said, stepping closer. “Did you see a doctor?”_

_“You're kidding right? We have a nurse at the orphanage and boys will be boys.”_

_“Take off your clothes,” Wayne commanded._

_“No,” John said and took a step back. He would absolutely not take off his clothes, even if he kinda dreamed about that nearly every night, but he would so not. This wasn't the kind of situation where he would gladly strip for Wayne._

_Wayne stopped and looked at him. “Did someone...?” he left the question hanging._

_“You know. Funny how you only care about that now. I bet everyone at the orphanage thinks the guy who demands my company every freaking weekend is having sex with me.” He put his hands in his pockets, he knew he looked younger that way, and stared at Wayne. “And not the consensual kind.”_

_“Rape you mean,” Wayne said. His voice was calm and soft and angry._

_John nodded. “Yes. I mean rape.”_

_“And they let you get into the car every Friday anyway?”_

_John spread his arms wide. “Here I am, am I not?”_

_“Yes,” Wayne said. John could see his mind working. He had been so into this whole training the next vigilante thing and so used to getting his way because he had money that he never considered what that implied._

_“Ah, see, Now you get it. When it's me, it's the other boys too? The answer to that is, shockingly enough, yes.” John said and he felt mean, because Wayne tried his best, but he was messed up. Had bigger fish on his mind. Didn't care for the lost kids of Gotham any more than other rich people who donated money and never demanded to see where it went or visited the homes. Did something with the children, talked to them, asked them questions, let them speak. They didn't care._

_“Go upstairs and tell Alfred to call a doctor. I want you checked out,” Wayne said._

_“What about the training? I thought some awesome ninja moves would be the highlight of my week.”_

_“Throwing stars tomorrow. As soon as I know you're okay.”_

_“I'm fine,” John said. He was not, but whatever._

_“I'll rather take a trained physician's word for that over yours, if it's okay with you?”_

_Sarcastic bastard, John thought fondly. He nodded._

~+~  
John hadn't mastered the throwing stars like a true ninja before Wayne's car stopped showing up. He tried getting his hands on some, but they were fucking expensive and it wasn't like orphans had any money to spend. So he practised with knives. He went out into the woods, took a bus, and then walked for an hour to the outskirts close to the Wayne manor. At first he threw small knives at trees and then at smaller targets. He was pretty good too.

When he joined the force he didn't make that much money, but enough that he could've saved up to get a set of throwing starts. But somehow (like so many other things) they became a sore spot.

~+~  
“I used to get into fights a lot,” he told Mark, “Before I was sent here to St. Swithin's.”  
Mark gave him a look, but didn't bother to answer. It had been only a matter of time before the boy started to get angry. “Started shit whenever I could,” he carried on.

“Did you any good?”

“I'm a cop now,” John answered.

Mark looked up at him. “That doesn't answer the question.”

“No, it doesn't and no it didn't.” But that was a lie, it did. He got into fights because he had been fucking angry and when he got the shit kicked out of him he didn't feel the anger at Wayne leaving him anymore. He felt some kind of clarity that was only pain. But he wouldn't tell Mark that, because Mark's brother was dead and it wouldn't help Mark to get the shit kicked out of him. Every person was different after all.

“Any progress on the...” he swallowed. “On my brother?”

“It looks like an accident,” John said. And that was a lie too. Jimmy had probably been mixed up in something shady, but that information wouldn't help Mark either.

Mark drew another bat on the bench and they kept sitting in silence until John had to go.

~+~  
John remembered the day his orphanage had been closed down very well. It was burned into his mind. It had been a swift and silent affair. He remembered seeing Gordon, who hadn't been Commissioner Gordon back then. John knew that Batman had tipped them off, but he still counted it as his first successful operation. After all it had been John who tipped Batman off.

St. Swithin's hadn't been that different from the old orphanage, but it hadn't been shady. The people who worked there were all committed to the cause. They cared and you could feel it every minute of every day, and that was why John still coached basketball there in his free time. It became his home for the last few years he had been the City's responsibility.  
And John cared about the boys. He wanted for all of them to go out and be great citizens and he knew that it wouldn't happen, but that they would probably do their best.

~+~  
 _“So, you shut down the orphanage,” John said between blocking Wayne's attacks._

_“How can you still be talking after an hour of this?” Wayne asked. But there was something like a smile in his voice. John had become very good at hearing them. He studied Wayne like it was his favourite thing to do in the world. He could draw every single scar on Wayne's body from memory. At least those he had seen._

_“The wonders of being young,” John answered._

_Wayne caught him off guard and had him pinned to the mat a minute later. “There are things to be said about being experienced as well,” Wayne said._

_John was staring up at him and holding his breath. He could smell Wayne, it was intoxicating. He knew he should be tapping the mat right the fuck now, but he couldn't make his body move. He was afraid to move, because if he did he would do something stupid like drag Wayne down by his sweaty shirt and kiss the hell out of him._

_“Are you okay?” Wayne asked._

_“You're heavy as hell,” John pressed out and tapped the mat.  
Wayne got up immediately and held out his hand. John didn't take it. “Thanks I can manage.” _

_He wondered as he took a sip of his water if this would get worse. This crush, this trust, this unconditional... something, that he didn't dare to call love. Especially not in Wayne's presence. Chances were it would get worse, would grow into something bigger and try to swallow him. Would make him vulnerable. He had to crush it, bury it deep, lock it up. Something. Anything before he fucked things up with Wayne. He could do this, for a while. A few years and maybe then Wayne would feel something for John too. Maybe the feelings would go away. John had just to hang in there a bit longer._

_“Go and wash up. The driver will drive you back in an hour.”_

_“Isn't that a bit early?” John asked._

_“I have a thing this evening.”_

_John nodded. “See you next week then.”_

 

**~Five~**

_The driver didn't come. John read all about Harvey Dent's death on Wednesday. He made a connection of course. But he still had thought that Wayne would send for him, that they would continue the training, still would spend time together._

_He waited. He waited three weeks and then he got on the bus and drove out there. Banged on the door until his hands were bloody. Wayne didn't let him in.  
He got into fights again because he had been so angry and then he got the knives and spent his free time practising with them just to get his mind off of things. He tried not to listen to the crap people were now talking about Batman, but it was hard and he got into fights again. How any sane person could actually believe the shit the papers wrote was beyond John. _

_Sometimes he waited for Batman to show up again and put things right, sometimes he just wanted for Wayne to show up again and...whatever. Anything. Wayne abandoning him created a void that was hollowing him out and he could feel it. Could feel something pulling him down, making him try not to care too much anymore.  
He kept his distance, but it was okay, because he was nearly a grown up anyway by the City's laws. He needed to think about what he would do once he had to leave the orphanage. And he got angry again, because he had had his future planned out. He should have been Batman's heir. But Wayne took that away from John and John didn't know why. It was unbearable at times not knowing why. It was rotting inside him that unanswered question. Wet and rusty red, dragging him down at times. So he had to go out and run and scream and throw knives in the woods. _

_He had all these skills and they lay barren. He couldn't use them. It was driving him crazy. For eight years John only dipped his toes into that pool of skills from now and then until Bane and the occupation. Until he came back and disappeared and came back again._

~+~  
“It's a fucking roller-coaster with you,” John said. He wasn't even surprised to see Wayne in the cave. Obviously waiting for John to end his shift. “You're there for me, you're not, you're dead, you're not.” He threw his mask on the table and began to strip out of his suit. Hell if he cared if Wayne was back. He would bet everything he had, he was the only one who knew Wayne was back in town. “Are you going to keep staring? Should I strip slower?”

“You killed people, John,” Wayne said.

John really didn't care for a lecture right now. He was bruised up, he was filthy and hungry and tired. And he had a day-job too. “Spare me the lecture. I'm not you.”

“I trained you to become me-”

“You,” he turned around furious like he wasn't in a long time, “Abandoned me!”

“John-”

“No, you taught me all these things. Like to break every single bone in someone's body, throwing sharp objects with precision, how to get out of cuffs in under three seconds. And you left me with all these skills and my rage with nowhere to go. I wasn't even sixteen back then!” He said. “And now you're here and complaining that I am killing people? That I use a gun?”

“I didn't teach you how to use a gun, John,” Wayne said.

“No, the force did. That is what I did with my life. That was the next best thing and you know what? It wasn't good at all.” He took a deep breath. “You left me and I dealt. And then you came back and I dealt, you left again-”

“I was held prisoner by Bane,” Wayne cut in.

“I know, you came back, clawed your way out of there and saved the City, don't think I am not grateful for that, but then you _died_ and left me to pick up the pieces and now you're back because you don't like how I handle things?” He threw the last pieces of the suit on the chair and looked Wayne in the eye. Naked as he was. “You don't get to complain about this, because this is not yours anymore. I'm going to shower now.” He said, grabbing his pants and going upstairs.

~+~  
John hoped that Wayne would be gone when he came back out of the shower, but of course he didn't have so much luck. He was wound up and needed an outlet, to get all the adrenalin out of his system again. What he needed after a night like this was a good hard fuck and some not so old fashioned meditation.

“Why are you still here?” he asked, rubbing his hair dry with a towel.

“Because I want to talk to you.”

“There is nothing to say anymore. You trained me, you made me your heir, and you left me. I carry on and on and on. End of the fucking story.” He lit a cigarette and cracked a window. It was a warm enough night for it. He would probably sleep naked too.

“I understand you're angry John-”

“I'm not angry anymore. I'm so past angry. I do what I can for this City. Do I think it deserves to be saved? On some nights. Is this one of those nights? Not so much, Wayne. Just leave me alone. Just go away, disappear to where you've come from and don't come back, please for god's sake, stay away.” He felt like lashing out, watching Wayne watching him. Like he was being judged. Like he was a disappointment. Like Batman made a mistake in giving John the cowl.

“I thought you were a different person,” Wayne said.

“I thought you wouldn't abandon an easy to impress kid for the greater good,” John gave back.

“It wasn't for the greater good,” Wayne said. His voice was soft.

John flipped his butt out of the window. “What?”

“I left you because I couldn't muster the energy to care after I lost Rachel and Dent and the City. So I threw away everything.”

“And one of the things was me, the problem is I am not a thing. This is what your selflessness, your selfishness made out of me.”

“You're bitter.”

“Hell yes. It's rotting inside me all these years,” John spit out.

“What?”

“Why I couldn't be enough for you to go on.” Why you couldn't love me like I loved you, he thought, but didn't voice.

“I'm sorry,” Wayne said and he sounded like he meant it.

“Whatever,” John answered. “I'm going out. Are you going to stay here?”

“No,” Wayne replied and got up. He didn't say goodbye on his way out, but then he hadn't done that a single time before.

~+~  
“You've learned a few new tricks,” Wayne said.

John was too tired and fucked out to yell at him for stalking John's apartment, even if his apartment belonged to Wayne and his family for god only knew how long before he gifted it to the City and Alfred let him stay here and care for the kids. Unassuming teacher in a boy's home by day and vicious vigilante by night. Perfect fucking life.

“Did you tail me?” John asked, but he knew the answer. “Did you watch me hook up?”

“I didn't know you were into-”

“Guys?”

“S/M,” Wayne said.

John sighed. He was sure Wayne was messing with him. “It's called Shibari. The fine art of tying people up. And I don't get off on it. It helps me however to come down from a fucked up night like this.” John should probably wonder why Wayne was suddenly interested in John's hobbies, but it was late.  
He played around with ropes, got laid (not in that order and with three different people) and just wanted to sleep for a few hours before he had to teach a bunch of boys in the morning. “I need to sleep. Seriously, I am too fucked out and mellow to be doing this with y-”

He more felt than saw the attack coming. The room was still dark and Wayne was an even darker presence in the shadows, but John's every nerve was in tune with Wayne. He could smell Wayne, was nearly convinced he could hear Wayne's heart beating as they spared, fought for dominance?  
Maybe.  
Wayne was damaged, but he was still good. Experience, John thought, but John was young and agile and his body wasn't made up of 50% scar-tissue.

He had Wayne pinned to the wall in under thirty minutes. He was breathing too fast and he was hard, but he wasn't sure if he should let up. Wayne still hadn't tapped the (imaginary) mat.

“It turned you on,” John realised, “what I did to these men with the rope.” He leaned a bit closer, could feel Wayne's breath on his lips and- Wayne tapped the wall twice.  
John let up. Years of training, not only with Wayne but also during the Academy and with the boys. It was second nature to let up if someone tapped twice.

There was silence. It went on for so long that John didn't think he would get an answer and then Wayne said, “It looks intimate.”

John took another few steps back, so the bed was between them. He knew what Wayne was asking without really asking, because he was Wayne. Damn him. But John couldn't do that. It was true that he didn't feel anything except for meditative calm when he tied people up, but he also knew it would be different with Wayne, because it’s always different with Wayne. Because Wayne made him feel all kinds of things. Anger, lust, fear, love. All the time. It was impossible for John not to feel with Wayne being involved.

“Don't ask me for things, because I will give them to you,” John said quietly.

John could see the realization as it happened and was tempted to close his eyes. “Like breaking your bones to get out of handcuffs,” Wayne said softly.

“Yes,” John answered.

~+~  
They stood there and John didn't know what to do or say.

“John,” Wayne said in that voice he used all these years ago when he saw John's broken finger and John looked up, just in time to be grabbed and pinned to the bed.

Wayne was heavy and his grip hard, but John was sure he could've broken it. He didn't. He just looked up into Wayne's face. A mirror of days spent in the cave. And then Wayne kissed him, slow and searching and that rotting thing inside him, that thing that was like a red rusty swamp threatened to break open and then all that was buried at its bottom would leak and John would bleed out. It was a most disturbing and terrifying thought. “I didn't realise,” Wayne said.

“I was a kid,” John answered shrugging.

“Not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” John replied and flipped them over.

Wayne dragged him down and laughed into his mouth as they kissed again.  
John looked down at Wayne and took a deep breath. It was a stupid risk to get involved.

“John,” Wayne said again.

“I could hurt you,” John whispered.

“John.”

“I want to hurt you,” John admitted, because it was the truth too. He was still angry and he was still conflicted and he was still messed up.

“You won't.”

“I kill people,” John said in a last effort to sabotage himself, maybe.

“Shut up John. I've made up my mind,” Wayne answered and for the first time John wondered how long Wayne wanted this too. Why he really came back.

“Okay,” John whispered. He could feel Wayne hard under him, but he was too fucking tired for another round of crazy wild sex. “I'm too tired to fuck you tonight,” he said softly, “But I will suck your dick.”  
Wayne moaned and made to grab for him. John pinned his hands down and guided them to the headboard. “You won't grab my head, you won't pat my cheeks or face or neck and you won't tangle your fingers in my hair, understood?” He waited until Wayne nodded and then slid down Wayne's body.

~+~  
”You're going to stay now?” John asked the next morning over coffee.

“Came back from the dead before. I think I can do that again.”

“Even Jesus only performed that particular trick once. It's just not that shocking the second time around,” John answered.

“I could be someone else,” Wayne said.

John looked at him. He wondered if Wayne even knew who the hell he was. John wondered about himself too when he looked into the mirror. He sure as hell wasn't the boy who looked up to Batman, the boy with the fierce piece of hope inside his chest. He was someone else now, something else. Something dangerous.

“I can't,” he said, because Wayne needed to know that. John was messed up, but he didn't want to start this with false hope.

“I don't approve-”

“Yeah, I don't fucking care,” John cut in.

“And I know that,” Wayne answered.

“And you still want it,” John said.

Wayne nodded.

 

[NC-17 Epilogue here: Tethered ](654935)


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